World Cafe on Four Corners Public Radio

The 11-member group from Boston known as Debo Band has a sound influenced by the traditional music played in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the late '60s and early '70s. This style, labeled "Addis swing," came about amid the cultural freedom of that period, before a military coup put an end to the era. Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen, who was born in Sudan and grew up in Texas, founded Debo Band, which released a self-titled album in July.

Field Report founder and frontman Chris Porterfield assumed his music career was over after he left the Wisconsin band DeYarmond Edison, which also featured Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and several current members of Megafaun. Following the band's 2006 breakup, Porterfield started writing music for the first time, taking years to hone his skills.

Until this week, it had been six years since Beth Orton released an album. In 1993, a chance meeting with Grammy-winning producer William Orbit led to the creation of her debut album, Trailer Park, as well as collaborations throughout the '90s with the likes of The Chemical Brothers. Her music was widely praised and dubbed "folktronica" — a blend of folk and electronic music.

All month, World Cafe invites listeners to discover the music of Havana, Cuba, with the series Sense of Place.

The final installment of this series is all about the greatest Cuban cultural export of the last two decades: Buena Vista Social Club.

David Wax Museum fuses traditional Mexican and American folk music into what the band calls "Mexo-Americana" — a style that's lively and unique. David Wax and Suz Slezak, the band's core members, met in Boston in 2007. After spending summers working with Quakers in rural Mexico, Wax spent a graduate fellowship year studying the local music of Mexico.

Singer-songwriter Iris DeMent was born the youngest child of a large Pentecostal family in rural Arkansas, and later moved to Southern California. DeMent grew up listening to traditional country and gospel music, which influenced her roots-folk sound, though she was 25 when she wrote her first song. It would take another five years for her to release her first album, Infamous Angel.

The Lighthouse and the Whaler is a band based in Cleveland, Ohio, though its name actually references the waters off the coast of Massachusetts. Originally, Michael LoPresti and Aaron Smith were its only members, and the very first song they wrote together, "The Field Song," ended up picked for a Paste sampler CD.

It took a while, but the London folk-rock band Mumford & Sons broke big with its 2009 debut album, Sigh No More. The album combines the raspy vocals of singer Marcus Mumford with lush harmonies and rootsy instrumentation on tracks that range from soothing to rocking.

All month, World Cafe invites listeners to discover the music of Havana, Cuba, with the series Sense of Place.